rural health

Community-owned hospital in better financial shape after last year's $12M loss.

Not a fully rural hospital, St. John’s Health’s ‘in-between status’ means new deposits may have to be returned.

Big chunks of the federal dollars are going toward improving access to emergency care and keeping labor and delivery units open.

Midwife-run birth centers for low-risk patients are especially popular in some rural Western states.

As health care systems move toward more and more electronic record keeping, the labor it takes to manage that data threatens to cripple rural hospitals, according to industry insiders.

Wyoming is getting $2.4 million from the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, a bump over the previous year.

The federal government awarded millions of dollars to states to develop programs to train more healthcare providers in rural areas.

That’s especially true in the Mountain West. In most states, if one delivery unit shuts down, the next closest one is more than an hour away.

About half of Wyoming counties don’t have an OB-GYN. At least nine don’t have labor and delivery units.

The new program will help pay for tuition at a University of California program. The goal is to offer more breastfeeding support in rural areas.